In Ely, racer sets unofficial world record for marathon while portaging a canoe

After setting an unofficial world record at the Ely Marathon last weekend for the speediest 26.2-mile run while hoisting a canoe overhead, Paul Shol celebrated the way anyone drawn to this race might:

He retreated into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for a few days of camping. And more canoe carrying.

“More real portages,” Shol, 39, said after he returned.

Lugging a 26-pound solo Kevlar canoe, Shol completed the marathon course Sept. 20 in 3 hours, 58 minutes, 54 seconds. He appears at 1:32 in the video below.

He was among a small contingent of racers who choose to run the course with a boat; seven men completed the portage marathon. Two teams of men and two teams of women finished the half-marathon portage relay. A few hundred other runners completed the course in the traditional way — without a canoe.

Shol was chasing a men’s world record set by winner Drew Boysen (4:11:04) last year.

To be sure, there isn’t a lot of competition around the globe. Organizers of the North Woods Minnesota race said there doesn’t seem to be anything like it regularly appearing on race schedules anywhere else.

Shol, who has a lot of Boundary Waters experience and is an ultramarathoner, took interest in portage racing when he read an article about Victoria Ranua, a former University of Minnesota runner from Shakopee who improved on the women’s record last year by more than an hour and a half.

After learning more, he was sure he could beat the best men’s finish.

He started training in July, adding a canoe to his morning runs about every other day. Then he began fiddling with his setup: adjustments to the yoke, finding the balancing points, building tolerance for the added weight to his neck and shoulders. He added towels for comfort and removed the solo canoe’s seat to make it lighter. He figured out that he could carry the canoe with one hand at a time, a race game-changer.

Shol said he got a lot of wide-eyes from onlookers during his training around his home in Fergus Falls.

“I loved to stop and share with them a little bit about what I was doing,” he said. “It was fun to see their reaction.”

“I was pleased with how it went,” Shol said. “I felt great, better than all my long runs with the canoe.”

The Ely Marathon started in 2015 as a way to get visitors to town during a slow period. LynnAnne Vesper, of Ely, was inspired by marketing material listing the race distance not in miles but in rods — which are approximately the length of a canoe and a nod to the town’s outdoors culture.

It gave her an idea.

“A few years ago, I started a trend,” Vesper said in a video. “I became the first person to run a half-marathon carrying a canoe.”

Since 2016, dozens have shouldered this added burden for their race, which starts at Burntside Lake outside of town and winds through the woods to end in downtown Ely.

Shol said he has always been interested in physical challenges. He ran with Joshua 1:9 written on his canoe, a Bible verse that he says is in his head during races because it speaks to courage.